Assignment 1 Task 1(Pioneers)

Development – Pioneers

These early pioneers were invaluable for the advancement in moving image and the way we view moving image.

Joseph Plateu (Phenakistiscope)

Joseph Plateu invented his Phenakistiscope in 1832 (inspired by the works of Michael Faraday & Peter Mark Roget.

Joseph Plateu was a Belgian physicist who researched the human eye and how it works, specifically the retina because it lets the eye see colour.

The phenakistiscope is essentially 2 discs that spin in the same direction, when viewed in a mirror through the first discs’ slot the second disc seems to move. The phenakistiscope was the first widespread animation device that created an illusion of motion.

Phenakistiscope Link

Joseph Plateu's invention led to...

William Horner (Zoetrope)

William Horner, after Joseph Plateu’s invention of the Phenakistiscope, thought up a cylindrical variation and detailed its mathematical principles in January of 1834.

The zoetrope is a disc filled with images that when played one after another show a motion. The disc also has slits all over it, therefore when it is spun you’ll see all the pictures inside showing an illusion of motion by viewing through the slots. This advancement of the Phenakistiscope advanced moving images as a whole and further advancemnts were to come, but this invention slyly began film (The roll used in cameras).

Zoetrope Link

The Lumière brothers

The Lumière brothers are praised for their invention of a motion-picture camera and projector called the Cinématographe. This invention was based slightly on Edison’s Kinetoscope. This camera/projector combo was a huge advancement for the early film industry, it was the start of the advancement of cameras as a whole, thus meaning it was very influential as cameras are essential to film still and have become advanced further from these two brothers.

The Lumière brothers were some of the first film makers, they shot daily occurrences that interested them, as did most early film makers, for instance their films: The Serpentine Dance (1899) and Arrival Of A Train At La Ciotat (1895). These films followed no narrative, but instead showed things you’d expect to see in a typical day, this is why film was considered an industry “With no future” at first. Untill Edison invented the kinetoscope and introduced narrative.